Abstract: The optics employed in this study are reviewed, including historical information about the groups discussed, the documents associated with them, the contemporary activities and reminiscences of Pasquier, and the literary activities of women writers such as Marie de Romieu, Isabella Andreini, and Marie de Beaulieu, who crafted works to entertain the proto-salonniéres of the sixteenth century. The social gatherings and entertainments of sixteenth-century French noble and royal women reveal women's cultural leadership and influence on ludic literary society long before the famous salonniéres of the seventeenth century were circumscribed as a unique phenomenon. Ultimately, enduring elements of sixteenth-century société mondaine that arise in the seventeenth century illustrate the ways that theorists of play have argued that play and culture are productively intertwined.

Keywords: Estienne Pasquier, Isabella Andreini, Marie de Romieu, Marie de Beaulieu, salonnières

As we have seen, largely women-led circles in sixteenth-century France may be said to presage those of seventeenth century in many ways. Colette Winn and François Rouget assert that this occurrence may be directly linked to Marguerite de Valois's activities at Nérac (see the first epigraph). I have endeavored in this study to illustrate several of the groups and elements of the societé mondaine under the influence of the last Valois, with their particular Franco-Italian tastes, that foreshadow those popular in seventeenth-century salon society.